{"id":310712,"date":"2025-12-11T21:03:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T21:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/310712\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T21:03:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T21:03:15","slug":"mesmerizing-period-drama-with-stacked-british-cast-lands-new-uk-streaming-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/310712\/","title":{"rendered":"“Mesmerizing” period drama with stacked British cast lands new UK streaming home"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Kenneth Branagh’s historical drama with a star-studded cast has just been added to a new streaming platform in the UK. Released in 2018, the period drama All Is True chronicles the later years of playwright William Shakespeare as he comes to terms with the death of his son, Hamnet.<\/p>\n

Branagh stars as Shakespeare, with Judi Dench as his wife Anne Hathaway, with whom he has a fraught relationship, and Ian McKellen as the Bard’s patron, the Earl of Southampton. Lydia Wilson plays Shakespeare’s eldest daughter, Susanna, while Kathryn Wilder stars as Judith, Hamnet’s twin.<\/p>\n

Written by Ben Elton, All Is True is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer. <\/p>\n

The film received critical acclaim upon release, earning a score of 73% on Rotten Tomatoes out of 142 reviews. Critics praised the humanising portrayal of the legendary playwright, as Rolling Stone<\/a> deemed the film “a mesmerizing meditation on Shakespeare’s last days”.<\/p>\n

“Director-star Kenneth Branagh shuns the idea of the Bard as a literary rock star to find the flawed, touchingly human man inside,” the review reads.<\/p>\n

\"judi<\/p>\n

Rob Youngson\/Sony Pictures\/Kobal\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Related: Best streaming services<\/a> <\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Empire<\/a> called All Is True “a quiet and meditative portrait of the artist as a retiree”, adding: “This lacks incident or high stakes but has an elegiac feeling of regret and reckoning that fits its subject’s twilight years.”<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a> also celebrated the joint effort of Branagh and Elton, writing: “Between them, [they] have concocted a respectful story of loss, regret and wistful genius.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Slate<\/a> slammed the film as “an overstuffed mess” and Variety<\/a> argued it struggled to find a target audience as “a revisionist fiasco”.<\/p>\n

“The result is a revisionist fiasco, too dense with Shakespeare allusions for casual moviegoers, and too fast and loose with the facts for those who know a thing or two about the man,” read the review.<\/p>\n

\"jessie<\/p>\n

Focus Features<\/p>\n

Related: UK film release dates<\/a><\/p>\n

Also looking at Shakespeare’s relationship with his son is Chlo\u00e9 Zhao’s upcoming Hamnet, starring Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as the poet.<\/p>\n

The film adapts the novel of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell, who co-wrote the script with Zhao, and focuses on the strained relationship between Agnes and William following the death of their son.<\/p>\n

All Is True is streaming on BBC iPlayer. <\/p>\n

Hamnet releases in cinemas on 9 January 2026.<\/p>\n

Love TV? Get your Christmas viewing sorted with the Good Housekeeping Christmas TV Guide<\/a>, featuring 14 days of Christmas TV listings, plus everything you need for the ultimate festive viewing experience! Just \u00a34.75 \u2013 available now at Morrisons, TG Jones and all other good magazine retailers.
<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Reporter, Digital Spy<\/p>\n

Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times<\/a> and Digital Spy<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her beats are horror films and period dramas, especially if fronted by queer women. She can argue why Scream is the best slasher in four languages (and a half).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Kenneth Branagh’s historical drama with a star-studded cast has just been added to a new streaming platform…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[379,123820,381,96,1156,2839,123819,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-310712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-f4f8c276-7938-4aff-ae22-3dcb03ba001b","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-locale-gb","tag-movies","tag-shorttitle-mesmerizing-brit-drama-lands-new-uk-streaming-home","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}